I was really excited to start this, and holy shit, is the opening dark. I know there are other games that properly portray the reality of war, but I’ve never seen it done by Final Fantasy, even though nearly all of them center around it. Squeenix pulled no punches in showing how horrible war is with bleeding bodies on the street, the city burning, and *spoiler* a boy who can’t be more than 15 dying besides his mortally wounded chocobo *end spoiler* This is not your little sibling’s Final Fantasy.

I was also happy that they offered the Japanese with English subtitles option, and I’m hoping Squeenix continues this trend with all of their future games (hint hint: FFVII Remake), but unfortunately my delight didn’t last. Type-0 is an action RPG, so the battles aren’t turn based While it doesn’t seem to be that difficult so far, I’m a little bummed out, because as is widely known, I’m more of a turn based fan, despite some peoples’ opinions that turn based is dead (thanks Evil Wizard!). I’m not going to abandon the game over this, and I’m sure I’ll get the hang of the battle system soon enough. I have the tutorials on, but I’m still not that great at it. I only played until I reached the first save point and haven’t finished the first chapter yet. If the battle system really grates on me, I’ll just wind up watching a Let’s Play of it.

Have any of you played Type-0? What’s your impression of it? Is the title supposed to be a pun on the word “typo?” Would you tell me if it was?

I finally started playing this this weekend on my PS3, which works like a dream. I still have to figure out a few things with the system, but I’ve downloaded Netflix, Hulu, and I browsed the PSN, but didn’t buy anything.

V so far is exactly what I’d expect a Final Fantasy to be, though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t without its surprises. I didn’t know the catalyst for this story is also a meteor! Rather than dampening my spirits in the fear that FFVII isn’t unique (it…isn’t; that’s never been in up for debate nor a strike against it in my book), I’m overjoyed to have more evidence for my overarching Final Fantasy theory.

FFV is immediately engaging; the music is fantastic, and the difficulty level seems more akin to FFVI than FFIV (so far). I like that you start off the game with a chocobo since he comes with the main character Bartz Klauser (holy German sounding name, Batman). This is the first one I’ve played where this is the case. Even though the games aren’t unique with respect to familiar fantasy motifs and others in the series, they still all contain unique elements. V returns to the Job System, which I’m too early in to understand or have to utilize, but I’m sure I’ll learn.

On a final note, the scene in the inn with Bartz, Galuf, and Faris is absolutely hilarious. I know the pirate captain’s secret already, but I am enjoying the hints the game’s dropping, and I have a feeling I know how it’s going to be revealed.

Have you played Final Fantasy V? Do you have any tips for me before I delve deeper in?

While this is still on my Currently Playing list, this week is probably its last hurrah. I’m not going to stop playing it, but I don’t see the point in updating a freemium game that never ends, especially since I’ve cut back a lot on my playing to concentrate on other games/Final Fantasies.

I’m probably not going to write a review, because I believe LightningEllen is planning one, and I’ll just piggyback some of my thoughts on her post when it comes out 🙂 Am I being lazy? Yup. I’m just going to wait for Lightning to strike *runs away*

I forgot to delete the email notification that told me part 15 was up, so I kept clicking on it to watch part 15 then I realized I’d already seen it lol. I’m hoping I catch one of HG’s livestreams. They’re always so much fun 😀

Thessia has fallen 😦 Sorry if that’s a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t seen/played ME3, but yeah. That part was the equivalent of the scene in a Disney movie where it seems like the villain has won. Things are at their worst; the heroes are at their lowest, but Shepherd is not one to just quit, and I hope she kicks Kai Leng’s thieving, taunting butt.

This is what I don’t get about these scenarios. The Reapers are going to kill everybody. Why would Cerberus re: The Illusive Man think that he could control them?? Why would you hinder the one person who has the best if not only chance to save the galaxy from an ancient eldritch horror and (literal) existential threat? The Reapers cannot be reasoned with! The same as the Brethren Moons of Dead Space , Jenova of Final Fantasy VII., or the old gods of Lovecraft’s mythos who provided a basis for them all. You can’t reason with an eldritch abomination, because human life doesn’t matter to them, and I don’t mean it doesn’t matter to them because they’re purposely malicious; I mean it doesn’t matter to them because they see it as insignificant, less than how we view flies and worms. I suppose the need for power can become so strong that you wind up seeking the very thing you created your organization to fight against. The whole point of Cerberus was the further humanity’s interests in the galaxy, but ironically, the Illusive Man is doing the exact opposite in hindering Shepherd from defeating the very beings that would destroy us all.

I’ve watched three videos this week, and I’ll probably be finished before next! Take that 🙂

I could not play this game. One, it has a creepy atmosphere due to it being set in an alien world, and two, it’s hard as fuck. Some of the things you have to do are either counter-intuitive or impossible to figure out, and the Let’s Player has had to utilize a guide numerous times to figure out what to do next. It’s almost like an action-puzzle game, but if you mess up, it ends in death and the game often restarts you quite far back prior to when you completed some other difficult, usually timing based task. It’s absolutely brutal.

.Games Added to Playlist: 1

The Stanley Parable – Thanks to Falcon Game Reviews for recommending this one through a conversation on one of our blogs. I don’t specifically remember where, I apologize. This is apparently a game for gamers, as in it makes fun of gaming jokes and is quite tongue-in-cheek. It’s a PC game, so I should have no problem finding it.

Total Games in Backlog: 114
Change from Last Week: -1

Games Added to Watch List: 0

Total Games on Watch List: 27
Change from Last Week: 0

Games Purchased This Week: 0

Miscellaneous

I now have an Xbox 360, which I obtained entirely for free!

A few months ago, I discovered one of my sort of coworkers (and I say “sort of,” because we’re in different departments) was also a gamer who liked RPGs, hooray! I wound up lending him my Eternal Eyes, because he said his daughter liked games like that. His son makes these amazing origami creations, and I now have a ton of those on my desk. He’s into other nerd stuff like comic books, which I’m starting to get into due to Saga, something else we were talking about today.

So I’d been talking about how I wanted to play Lost Odyssey, but needed an Xbox 360 or Xbone in order to do so, though I’d decided to go with the former since it’s cheaper and has more exclusive RPGs out for it. It turns out he happened to have one he didn’t use any more, and despite my offers of monetary compensation, he said I could just have it. It had a few minor issues, and I would’ve had to have bought a controller, memory card, and extra space, but I’m not going to complain about a free system. Well, it turns out a friend of his also had an Xbox 360 that was just gathering dust in his basement. He’d tried to sell it on eBay, but the person who won the bidding never paid, and instead of hunting the deadbeat down, he decided to give the system to his friend (my coworker) who’d mentioned he knew someone who was looking for one.

Long story story, I have a brand new 250G Xbox 360 with two controllers, a memory card and Call of Duty for the cost of being a nice geek, which I do all the time anyway. I still need to set it up, which means cleaning the bedroom (the HORROR), but I’m hoping to do that this weekend so I can try out the pinata game. My brother and a few of my friends have Xbox Live accounts so I’ll be able to do that, too, plus now I can be apart of Microsoft’s world as well as Sony’s. I pretty much go where the good (J)RPGs are. The more the merrier! If you have an Xbox Live account, and you want to be friends, just let me know!

Also, I think I’m going to change my banner cover for these posts in the near future. I love that it’s a Nintendo controller, but it’s not as aesthetically pleasing as I’d like. I might see if I can find a nice banner with a bunch of controllers or systems, since I’m not exclusively a retro gamer.

What are you currently playing and/or watching? Is it something new or old? Is it a first time run or a replay? What’s the genre? Would you recommend it? What’s on your radar to play next?

24 thoughts on “The State of the Gamer: 6/20/17”

My husband just picked up a used XBOX ONE so for father’s day (from the dog’s of course) I picked him up Elder Scrolls Oblivion and the entire collection of Mega Man. He practically shat his little britches. 😉

Congrats on the console! It’s so nice when you can see karma in action 🙂

And you have no idea how hard I’m sitting on my hands to not say anything about The Illusive Man and the Reapers (well, not right at this moment, but you know what I mean). As soon as I see you’ve finished, you might get a deluge of questions and comments from me haha.

I watched part of the Stanley Parable; it’s pretty cool. I think you’ll like it. Sadly, I don’t know anything about the Final Fantasy games you’re playing, so no helpful comments from me there.

In my gaming life, I’m still plugging through Andromeda. I’ve started hooking my PS4 into the television in the living room, which isn’t a tube TV, so I can read things, but that means I have to play in the middle of the night. It’s pretty slow going, since I can’t pull all-nighters like I used to (although it’s 3:00am and I’m still awake for some reason). Oh! I also played a little Final Fantasy 10 and a little Final Fantasy 13 this week… so that’s pretty cool and exciting 😉

I think I know a little about his history from being naughty and peeking, but I don’t remember much. I just watched an episode of the LP where Shepherd finds the Sanctuary that’s anything but. Miranda left a bunch of recordings talking about what her complete monster of a father has done. It’s…so messed up.

FFV is much less popular than many of the others for some reason that hopefully I find out as I play. So far between the two of them, I’m preferring, but then again I’m more of an old school gamer at heart ♥

I remember the days when I could pull all-nighters. Gone forever now unless medical technology comes up with something. It was funny; I was watching ME3 and my husband was playing Andromeda. He does so with headphones on and the text is way too small for me to read where I sit, so I still have no idea anything about the plot and that’s how I’m going to keep it. I was planning on playing the original trilogy myself when I finished watching, but I may just play Andromeda first.

The battle system for Type 0 is a little odd, but if you can tough it out until the arena opens up back on the school grounds you can cheat the leveling system and steamroll everything with minimal effort. It’s not too far from the beginning.

I finished up Beyond Good & Evil HD and Syberia, so I moved on to Syberia 2. The Steam summer sale begins on Thursday and there are a few older point and click games on my wishlist I’m hoping to pick up on the cheap.

I remember you sent me that link now! I bookmarked it for later, so I’ll make sure I bring it out when I get to that spot.

I need to start paying attention to Steam Sales. It’s not like my husband doesn’t have a Steam account I can take over haha. Point and click you say? I haven’t played one of those since The Legend of Kyrandia: The Hand of Fate.

Each one of those games gets better! I hope they keep making them, because I think I’m almost done the third.

I did not know Type-0 was part of Fabula Nova Crystallis! That automatically moves it up several spots on my “To Play” list, and will greatly affect my overall biased opinion of the game 🙂 Have fun with FFV! I’ll get to it eventually. Hopefully my review of BE will be up this weekend! Since someone is waiting for it, I may actually finish it now. I also tried really hard to think of a Lightning pun in response, with no success, haha.

Congrats on the 360! My Xbox gamer tag is AdaOwnz if you want to add me (don’t ask about the name… I was a teenager obsessed with Resident Evil 4 when I created it).

When I saw that, I IMMEDIATELY thought of you lol. I was like “Wait a minute…that has something to do with FFXIII.” Apparently there are seven games in that “series?” If you play it, you’ll probably be able to pick out any similarities between it and your favorite trilogy 🙂

FFV is a lot of fun so far. Faris is quite a character, which is what I’d expect from someone with pink hair 😉

I’m not exactly sure what the deal is with the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, but I know XIII kicked it off so I love it unconditionally, haha. I think all 7 titles share the same crystal/deity mythology themes. I’ll hopefully learn more when I play the other games.

Someone has pink hair in V?! Why can’t someone just pay me to play Final Fantasy games all day?

Yup! I remember that and was reminded when I looked up what games were in the Fabula Nova Crystalis series. I was always curious about what the “Versus” meant. Versus what? And how did they modify that into XV? I know Versus was in production hell for a really long time, which is why they decided to just make it XV.

Cool on the 360, it’s not the best RPG machine but there are some gems and Lost Odyssey is my favorite RPG of last gen and in my mind the best Final Fantasy game since X.

As for Type-0, I bought it when it came out and was super excited for it and then I played it and well… I personally think it is a dud. And it doesn’t look very good on modern systems, so the HD transfer wasn’t particularly well done.

I’ve heard a ton of people say it’s basically another Final Fantasy. I am so hyped to play it!

It doesn’t have a very high rating on Grouvee I’ve noticed. I haven’t noticed much wrong with the HD, but I don’t have an HD TV so maybe that’s why? I’m not fond of the battle system obviously, but Cheap Boss Attack gave me a cheat to pretty much level up quickly that I’m going to use once I get to the proper spot! That should make the game infinitely easier.